Ideas on skin tip bales?

It should be about time for interest in gear ideas to pick up, so I thought I might see what thoughts are out there about climbing skin tip bales.
Here are some of mine, for what they are worth.

I've not been very happy with any of the tip bales that I have tried, although some of the specialty ones from Europe look interesting.  The standard solid wire bar or the newer flexible wire bales seem clunky, unaesthetic, and for me at least have the following problems:

- catching on the other ski, or on brush, making a rattling noise in the process that sounds like your gear is falling apart,
- the plastic covering on wire bales wearing out quickly,
- when the skin is folded over the bale, an area of adhesive is exposed that does not stick to the ski. Instead it creates a gap that fills with snow under some conditions. This snow can then gradually break the adhesive bond away from more area at the tip of the ski. Dirt and needles can then contaminate the exposed glue,
- as discussed in a previous thread, the folded over skin may come unstuck,
- flexible wire bales may not seat exactly in the same place each time or may slip down on the tip,
- the fibers on the skin overlying the end of the fold can wear off because of the sharp discontinuity the fold creates (especially in icy conditions)
- the fold over the wire bale is bulky and probably requires extra effort in some conditions.

Perhaps the first photo will show some of these problems. The sewn on tip bale on the standard Ascension skins solves a few of these problems, but not all.

The European rando racers have some interesting solutions, like skis with little slots milled in the tips that mate with the skins. There are also several types of bales shown on some of the websites whose function is a mystery to me.

Milling brush grabbing slots in my skis did not appeal to me, and not wanting to order things I did not understand, last year I started playing around with different ideas for tip bales. The last picture shows my current solution. Except for a static load test, it's completely untested on the snow. Hey, is that any different than a lot of the new gear offered each year?   

The bar is made of .024" stainless, and the fabric is vinyl-coated polyester.  The O-ring is probably not needed, but its there at least to help hang the skins to dry. This setup is 1/2 oz. lighter per pair than what it replaces. The skin and the tip bale stay completely flat against the base of the ski, and nothing to snag on the sides of the tip. I'm 110% sure this will be a great solution for my skis - - - but that's what I said with my last little project.   

I'm curious about other ideas, other solutions.

Larry

Hi Larry,

Paul Ramer used to sell skins with a tip bale similar to yours. Instead of polyester fabric connecting the bale to the skin, he used a piece of rubber about the thickness of an inner tube. The skins had a tail hook, so some sort of flexible tip attachment was necessary. I used these skins a few times (on a pair of firn skis) and they worked fine, as I remember.